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Cesar Orozco & Kamarata Jazz

DCJF Performance Date(s) and Venue(s)

Artist Links

Artist Bio

César Orozco is a prolific Cuban/Venezuelan pianist, violinist, composer, arranger, producer, and educator based in the New York City area. Mr. Orozco moved to the United States in 2012 after receiving a full tuition Assistantship from The Peabody Institute of John Hopkins University, where he earned a Graduate Performance Diploma (GPD) in Jazz Piano. He also holds a degree in Violin Performance and Ensemble Conducting from the National School of Arts in Havana, Cuba. Since arriving in the States, Orozco has become a much in-demand pianist in both Jazz and Latin-American music. Some of the artists he has worked with include Paquito D’Rivera, Pedrito Martinez, Gary Thomas, Yosvany Terry, Flavio Sala, Calixto Oviedo, Itai Kriss, Troy Roberts, Paul Bollenback, Jeremy Warren, and Giovanni Hidalgo just to name a few. Orozco has developed an innovative approach to a fusion of Venezuelan and Cuban traditional music with Jazz along with his project Kamarata Jazz. As a bandleader, he has performed at venues such as Blues Alley, Twins Jazz, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Bolivar Hall in London, the Bird's Basement Jazz Club in Melbourne, Australia, the Bimhuis Jazz Club in Amsterdam, Subrosa, The Zinc Bar, and the Fat Cat in New York City among others.

Throughout his career, Orozco has toured extensively across the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia, participating in some of the most renowned music festivals around the world such as the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, and the Jazz al Parque in Bogota, Colombia. He has participated in more than 60 albums including three on his own. The second one, "Orozcojam" (2010), was awarded for Best vocal/Instrumental album at Cubadisco 2012 in Havana, Cuba. He also won a DownBeat Magazine's 2014 Student Music Award for Outstanding Performance, Original Composition, Small Ensemble for the title track of the same album. His latest release "No Limits For Tumbao" on Alfi Records, has generated extensive radio airplay throughout the United States. As an arranger and composer, Mr. Orozco has written music for a wide range of ensembles and styles, including but not limited to chamber music, symphony orchestras, big bands and musical theater. He has been commissioned to write arrangements for the Chamber String Orchestra from the MCYO organization at Strathmore in Maryland, The Netherlands Blazers Ensemble (NBE), Raices Jazz Orchestra from Miami FL, The Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, and the HR-Big Band, also named Frankfurt Radio Bigband.

Orozco was born in Cuba in 1980 and traveled to Venezuela in 1997 after accepting an invitation from the Carabobo Symphony Orchestra as a violinist. In Venezuela, Mr. Orozco also developed a big career as a pianist, arranger, composer, and producer. He performed and/or recorded with some of the most important local and international artists, including Guaco, Andres Briceño, Maria Teresa Chacín, Soledad Bravo. Aquiles Báez, Ilan Chester, Orlando Poleo, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Pablo Gil, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Simón Díaz and flautist Huáscar Barradas among many others. He was music director, composer, arranger and pianist for two of the country’s most important musicals: "Venezuela Viva" and “Orinoco” with more than 100 international performances. He also served as a Professor of Jazz Piano, Harmony, and Ensembles for more than three years at the National Experimental University of the Arts in Caracas.

Mr. Orozco is currently an active clinician and educator. He has been invited to teach master classes at Berklee College of Music (MA) Loyola University (MD), the “New York Arts Program” (NY), and Salem State University (MA). He is also faculty at Wharton Institute of the Performing Arts in Berkley Heights, New Jersey and at Corlears School in Manhattan.

About DCJF

Since 2005, the DC Jazz Festival organization has provided enriching and entertaining jazz performances and programs that introduce students and adults from all walks of life to jazz, our nation’s singular original art form.